“The speed limit wasn’t reduced and people were going past 80 to 100kms an hour. I have nine cracks in my windscreen,” she said.

Ms Stacey was waiting until the road was fixed before calling RACQ to replace her windscreen as she did not want to “risk losing that one free windscreen a year”.

She said after complaints were made about the loose gravel, the road was swept, taking all the gravel off the top.

“Yesterday, I came through that road at 8.30am. It was fine. It was an unpleasant drive but it was fine but the road did look shiny,” she said.

Not long afterwards she saw a warning on a local Facebook page that the tar was lifting.

Ms Stacey said one truck was forced to pull off the road, its tyres dripping with tar.

A truck parked at Jaggan Hall, about 1km away from the tar-laden section of road. (Picture: Deborah Stacey) (Supplied)

“You could see while you’re driving along the road, the truck picked up the soft tar from the offending sections, and then because of the tar on the tyre and he’s a B-double, his sheer weight has picked up more portions of the road,” she said.

“He’s taken more of the road out that wasn’t being worked on.”

The truck needed new tyres to continue its journey – the tar-laden tyres abandoned on the side of the road.

The tyres after they were removed from the truck.
(Picture: Deborah Stacey) ()

Transport and Main Roads district director Sandra Burke has apologised to the local community and confirmed about 60 motorists so far have contacted the department seeking compensation for damage caused to their vehicles.

“The situation is completely unacceptable and I apologise on behalf of the department to all those people whose vehicles were damaged and travel plans disrupted by this extremely unusual event,” Ms Burke said.

She said the department became aware of an issue on June 25 when they “immediately reduced the road speed”, swept the road and put signs in place.

“What occurred yesterday will be the subject of a departmental investigation in close consultation with the contractors,” Ms Burke said.

“We believe recent cold and wet weather followed by a period of warmer conditions combined to destabilise the road surface which effectively became a sticky substance.”

A car abandoned at Tarzali after it's tyres became coated in tar.
(Picture: Deborah Stacey) (Supplied)

Ms Stacey disagrees that the road melted because of hot weather and said while the sun did peek out after a period of wet weather, it is still cool in the region.

Ms Burke said crews have already been on site today repairing damage.

“We will spread additional stone over the site and roll it into place to improve conditions.”

Ms Stacey admits she has seen roads melt before but she’s never seen it before like this.

“It’s just monumental,” she said.

“We pay taxes just like everyone else does but it seems like our basic needs are secondary, especially for farmers, this is a farming community – that road is the lifeblood of the community.”